Iraq's Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance has won the country's parliamentary elections, but failed to obtain an absolute majority. The alliance took 128 of the 275 seats - 10 short of an outright majority. Kurdish parties have 53 seats and the main Sunni Arab bloc 44. The Shias will now be expected to form a coalition government. A number of Sunni politicians have alleged fraud, and international observers criticised irregularities. Those who do not accept the results will have two days to appeal before they are certified as definitive. However, one Sunni party which won 11 parliamentary seats has called on other parties to unite to form a parliamentary opposition. ... http://news.bbc.co.uk

A woman abducted from a Jersey shore home where her two sons were found bludgeoned to death managed to escape from her captor and run to a gas station for help, authorities said Friday. The woman's ex-husband had called police Thursday night after she called him by cell phone, saying she had been kidnapped and forced to withdraw money from an ATM. He went to the home and found the bodies of his slain sons in the basement. Ocean County Prosecutor Thomas Kelaher said Friday that the boys, ages 7 and 14, had been beaten to death with a hammer....http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1526410

A former U.S. Defense Department analyst was sentenced to about 12 1/2 years in prison for passing classified documents to an Israeli diplomat and two men who worked for a pro-Israel lobbying group. Lawrence A. Franklin, who worked on the Pentagon's Iran desk until June 30, 2004, was also fined $10,0000 today in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. He pleaded guilty in October and, pending completion of his cooperation in the government's investigation, prosecutors said today they may ask for a reduction in his prison term. A former colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, Franklin admitted handing over classified information to two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. The men, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, were charged in August with conspiring to pass on information received from Franklin to a foreign government. ...http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=amtzBG3WnDOQ&refer=home

Turkey accused its neighbors on Friday of hushing up outbreaks of bird flu, complicating the fight against a virus that has killed four Turkish children. "It is unofficially known that this illness exists in our neighboring countries which are ruled by closed regimes, but these countries do not declare this because of their systems," Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker told a news conference. He did not name the countries he had in mind, but Iran and Syria are two likely targets of the criticism. Syria has asked the United Nations for help and will tighten surveillance along its border with Turkey, a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official said. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1526392

Seven more people have died in Russia's capital, Moscow, as Arctic temperatures continue to grip the country. The deaths happened overnight and were caused by exposure to temperatures as low as minus 31C, officials said. More than 30 people across Russia have died since Tuesday, in the coldest weather to affect the country in more than 25 years. Energy consumption has hit new highs as Russia struggled to keep warm in the severe winter conditions. "The Moscow energy system has never sustained such a load," said Anatoly Chubais, chief executive of the state electricity monopoly, the Unified Energy system. Many schools and businesses remained shut, electrical billboards turned off, cars were unable to start and trolley buses put out of action by snapped cables. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4631666.stm

An Iraq war veteran who pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter in the death of his 2-year-old son was ordered to pay for the funeral but spared from prison. Prosecutors had sought the maximum sentence of almost two years in prison for William C. Ullom, but Judge William C. Gore Jr. said Thursday that too much time had passed since little Christian Norris was violently shaken in 2002. "Some people will look at your defendant as a baby killer; others will say he is the authentic American hero," the judge said. "At this point, this far removed from the actual act … it appears to not be in the interest of justice to put him in prison."...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1526344